


Lower Than the Low

by Eissel



Series: Whumptober 2019 [9]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: An OC is named but doesn't play a huge role in the story, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Historical References, Hurt No Comfort, Ishbal | Ishval, Ishval Civil War, No 16 - Pinned Down, Symbolism, The Royai is hinted at not explicitly stated, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019, depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 21:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21063779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eissel/pseuds/Eissel
Summary: They're forever haunted by their mistakes, but some memories are more vivid than others, and they drown in them.(Or what the term “pinned down” means to 4 people)





	Lower Than the Low

1 -  _ the situation or condition of being unable to move because of the action of enemy forces _

Hughes understands the situation all too well. Ishvalan fire comes quick and fast, and despite the tracers Hughes's squad can't do jack fucking shit to fire back. 

He tosses a grenade over the ridge, and waits for the explosion. It doesn’t come and he curses. A fucking  _ dud.  _

“Hughes!” Maes looks up to see Tyler Coronado racing towards him, a pack grabbed close to his chest. He reaches out for the sandy haired man and pulls him into the trench head first. 

“What the  _ flying  _ ** _fuck _ ** were you doing Sergeant?!” He demands. “You could’ve gotten your ass killed!” 

“I got to the supply drop Sir!” Tyler’s out of breath and panting, hastily shoving the pack of ammunition into Hughes’ hands. “I grabbed as much as I could and stuffed it into that pack.” Hughes rifled through the bullets, and grabbed a magazine for his own gun. 

“Good job.” He says gruffly. “Now stick beside me, we’re gonna advance on the Iwans in one quick sweep.” He raises his voice above the fighting. “Men! Advance towards Point C!” His squad hoists themselves up and over the barricade, and run, terrified towards the next bit of shelter.

Hughes takes a different approach. He dives for the sand, crawling up to the Ishvalan pillboxes, desert traps they called them. He privately thanks whatever god Coronado worshipped before sticking his gun into a small opening in the box, and fires off. He squeezes the trigger like it’s his lifeline and waits for the screams to stop. He snatches up a grenade from his belt and hurls it in, and gets the fuck out of there to the next pillbox as he waits for the next explosion. 

Rinse and repeat 14 times over. 

When he’s done, he lies out on the sand, bloody and tired. 

“Hughes, are you trying to get yourself killed?” Coronado’s smug voice sounds from above him. Maes groans and rolls over. 

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh no no no Sir, I couldn’t! Didn’t you hear? You did  _ so well  _ in getting us out from being pinned that they’re lookin’ to  _ reward you  _ with a sweet sweet promotion to Second Lieutenant!” He can see the evil smile on the Sergeant’s face, and groans into the sand. 

  
  


2 -  _ trying to discover exactly what, where, or when something is _

Havoc chokes on his water when he walks into the fucking  _ firefight  _ that hadn’t been there two seconds ago. He hastily breaks for an abandoned building and gets as high as he can. 

He sighs out, and holsters his sniper rifle. He watches through the scope, waiting for the right moment. He sees Amestrian blue and Ishvalan white dyed red as he waits. 

Finally, the moment appears. One of the Iwans gets too cocky, and his colors are a beacon for Jean’s eyes. He pulls the trigger in serene calmness, and a spray of red blooms from the man’s chest. 

Havoc knows those bars, knows those colors like he knows his  ** _soul. _ **

_ Blue for the sky, Red for blood, White for purity, for Ishval.  _ He bristles, now knowing  _ exactly  _ why the fight had started. 

The man he’d shot was a member of the National People’s Front, probably a high ranking member too if Havoc guessed right. He’d been swarmed by the attacking Ishvalans, catching him before he’d hit the ground. 

Havoc wouldn’t have cared if he  _ had.  _ He couldn’t help it after seeing  _ those  _ colors, seeing  _ his  _ Eastern colors flying proudly on the man’s chest. 

The men fighting had probably seen it to, probably had gone to fight him for daring to use those colors  _ here.  _ He waits for the groups to untangle before firing off another shot, cold anger filling him. 

When the fight is over, he strolls down, and is greeted with cheers. 

“The man of the hour! Thanks for takin’ down the Iwan!” A First Lieutenant says as he claps Jean on the back. 

“It’s no problem. I don’t like seeing people use the Friesian colors all willy-nilly.” He’s clapped on the back again, and he staggers. He looks back at the carnage, at the body of the men he’d shot. 

The colors are marred by the blood, but Jean still thinks it’s better than seeing them on that man’s chest. On his report, he merely writes:  _ Fight broke out near Ruya, engaged with enemy, killed two members of the cohort.  _

He doesn’t list the actual reason anywhere in the report. Central hated it when the East acknowledged its past. So he invents one, and pens that down instead.

3 -  _ to force (someone) to make a decision or carry out a promise _

Riza waits for him outside his office. The White Feather Boy, the man who’d twinned his soul to her own. 

She sits and waits, waiting for him to come out. When he finally does, he is haggard, tired. 

“Must I?” His voice is quiet.

“You must.” She says, voice all too clear. He hangs his head. 

“Alright.” The soft whisper is  _ wrong _ , but then again this entire situation was  _ wrong.  _ She rises, and he follows, as well he should. 

She has him pinned to the wall, a bird with clipped wings. 

When they arrive in the broken down apartment, she goes into the bathroom and waits. 

She waits for the man who promised her to walk in, to kneel before her and set her alight. 

It’s a tragedy that he never knows just how much control  _ he  _ has over  _ her.  _

They both have themselves pinned, helpless butterflies trying to escape but only injuring themselves further. 

4 - _ to confine to a place _

Roy stares up at the black writhing mass. Circles upon circles fill his mind as he thinks of a way to break free. He cannot accept that he is no longer able to resist, pinned and helpless. 

_ Useless.  _

He stares at Bradley, and briefly wonders why his strike hadn’t connected. All he can recall in that moment was his thought process switching from  _ Riza, Riza, Riza-!  _ To  _ Human, enemy, that’s the Fuhrer you fool!  _

He had hesitated, and it cost him everything.

The flames he had managed to get out die down, the light abandoning him. He can see Riza, the ugly smile the Fuhrer Candidate had left in her skin. His vision wavers, the pain from having his hands pierced through (pierced through the  _ hands,  _ he will never be able to make a spark again, never be able to hold a pen, he is  _ useless completely and utterly useless _ ) finally starting to catch up. 

He is the most useful of the useful idiots (useful when he desperately wanted  _ not to be,  _ and forever useless when he  _ needed  _ to be useful), reacting just as expected. It’s ingrained in him now, the instinct to protect and they preyed upon it. 

_ They will bring about utopia for the few and hell for the masses and he cannot do a thing about it.  _

He can merely lie there and wait, the blood dripping onto the floor all too loud in his ears. Riza looks upon him now, ochre irises wide. She reaches out, but is quickly pulled back. He can read her lips, see the desperation in her jerky movements. He shakes his head minutely. 

_ Don’t die.  _

Bradley pulls his sabers from Roy’s hands with a sickening squelch. Roy’s life flashes before his eyes. Pride’s shadows clutch at him,  _ eat away  _ at him. He does his best not to scream, does his best to stay  _ utterly still.  _

He hyperventilates, vision swimming once more. 

The alchemical energy crackles despite the transmutation not having started yet. The blue lightning calls up the smell of ozone and Roy is plunged back into his memories. 

_ Fire everywhere, sand twisted into glass.  _

_ They called him a God, they called him the Devil.  _

_ He had only wanted to protect everyone.  _

_ But he  _ ** _hadn’t. _ **

_ Everything burns, and Roy Mustang screams to the heavens. _

The pain jolts him out of the memories, jolts him out of the lesson he had learned too many times over. He stares into dead, lifeless eyes as Pride smiles. 

“I won’t do it.” He rasps out, knowing that human will was ** _ nothing _ ** against this.

“It doesn’t matter.” Roy waits, the circle lights up, and he  _ screams.  _

_ Oh Little White Feather Boy, your birds come home to roost. _

The last thing he sees is Riza reaching desperately forwards. 

The pain drowns out anything else but that image, and Roy drowns in his sins. 

Everything is white, everything is  _ black,  _ and he is still a butterfly pinned to the wall… 

But he has a  _ chance.  _

There is flame, and he  _ screams.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Historical references are my bread and fuckin' butter kay?
> 
> 1 - Tyler Coronado is named for the USS Coronado. 
> 
> 2 - Hughes' stunt is pulled straight out of the Pacific Theater of WWII, from the battle of Peleliu where PFC (Private First Class) Arthur J. Jackson single-handedly took out 12 Japanese pillboxes. Jackson didn't get a promotion out of it, but he did receive the Medal of Honor.
> 
> 3 - Iwan is a German (pejorative) term for "Russian", used much like "Kraut" was by the Americans in WWI. In this fic it gets repurposed as a pejorative for Ishvalan.
> 
> 4 - The colors of the IRL Frisian flag are blue red and white, but they are not arranged in straight bars. Instead the blue and white alternate diagonally and there are red hearts on the white stripes.
> 
> 5 - White Feather Boy is a genderswapped version of the term White Feather Girl, which comes from the White Feather Campaign: During the Great War, Emmeline Pankhurst and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) suspended their goal of limited female suffrage through violence and intimidation, and instead aided in the war effort. They did so by pinning a white feather to civilian men. Shamed and coerced into participating, the young men enlisted.


End file.
